Chinese walker

Mark Ellingham has made a sizeable fortune from the creation of the Rough Guides to almost everywhere. He is short-listed (in Britain) for the Royal Society`s prize for science writing, for his book The Rough Guide to Climate Change.

Now, in a conversion that would command the admiration of St Paul, he declares that “binge flying” constitutes a huge threat to the global environment. “If the travel industry rosily goes ahead as it is doing, ignoring the effect that carbon emissions from flying are having on climate change, we are putting ourselves in a very similar position to the tobacco industry.”

He readily admits the irony that he, of all people, should articulate such a warning. He appeals for moderation, for setting some limits on our insatiable appetite for travel: “We now live in a society where, if people have nothing to do on a Saturday night, they go to Budapest for 48 hours. We fly anywhere at the slightest opportunity, 10 times and upwards a year. This needs to be addressed with the greatest urgency.”

Environmentalists would say that Ellingham is stating the obvious, adding, of course, that it is pretty rich coming from him. I am full of admiration for his frankness, however. Almost all of us are hypocrites about climate change. We know that it is real, and desperately serious. Yet we are in a shocking muddle about how to relate our personal behaviour to the phenomenon.

For those who inhabit the developed world, opportunities for travel represent the most significant new personal freedom of the past half-century. Even as recently as the 1960s, hitch-hiking to Greece and Turkey was a big deal for the adventurous young middle class. Africa and Asia were high-ticket destinations, South America and Australia almost off the map.

Today, it is possible to fly almost anywhere for a few hundred British pounds, and we all do. Every arriving jet at Nairobi or Ho Chi Minh City or Buenos Aires disgorges its crowds of package tourists and backpackers. Short breaks, which mean intensive plane use, are booming. Short-break destinations from the United Kingdom include Cape Town and Dubai.

Common sense tells us that all this is environmentally disastrous. Yet common sense also tells us that tourism is doing great things for the economies of poor societies all over the world. Carbon emissions soar as a result of flying flowers and vegetables to Europe and America from Africa and Mexico. Yet if that traffic stopped, millions of needy people in the growers` trade would suffer.

All this leaves many of us as confused as Ellingham. Relatively speaking, the travel boom has hardly started. In the decades ahead, many more millions will possess the means and the desire to fly further and more often. The Chinese, for instance, have only just begun to discover the joys of holidaying abroad. Suggesting to people who live in newly emergent economies that they should forgo travel is comparable with the modern western enthusiasm for saving Africa`s great animals, after slaughtering them wholesale for a century or two.

Even in the west, it is dangerous politics for a government to seek to check the electorate`s passion to fly, just as few democratic nations dare meddle with the freedom to drive. All credible curbs must be based on pricing. Yet if it becomes harder for the poor to travel while the rich stay airborne, this does not sound good on the hustings.

The best and simplest way forward would be to tax aviation fuel, to end the crazy anomaly whereby moving a plane is cheap, while driving a car is expensive almost everywhere in the world save Iran and the United States. But it is almost impossible to reach an international agreement on taxing aviation fuel that would stick. No government will act unilaterally, with the prospect of watching its aviation industry migrate elsewhere.

Siberia is not the first destination you might associate with the word “holiday”. However, we have been wonderfully surprised by this feisty, frosty Russian state. I think we’d expected to endure it as a necessary rite of passage on the way to more interesting places, like Mongolia. But it has been beautiful, brilliant and breathtaking.

One of Siberia’s many gems is the vastness of Lake Baikal. A powerful source of Shamanic power and significance for the indigenous Buryat people, it’s the world’s deepest lake and contains a fifth of the planet’s fresh water. So obviously the Russians built a filthy great polluting paper-pulping plant on its shores.

We took our slow travel mantra to the extreme with a six-hour, 60-mile train journey on the Circum-Baikal railway. The crowded airless carriage chugged languidly along the lakeside, doing a convincing impression of a banya (Russian sauna) as the potent spring sun poured in through the windows. “I didn’t expect to be too hot in Siberia,” I joked, to the amusement of Denis, our new Russian friend from Irkutsk, as we fanned ourselves frantically. He asked the guard if we could open the windows to stave off heatstroke. “We only open the windows in summer,” came the positively Soviet reply.

We feasted on smoked fish, a species endemic to the lake, while below us Baikal basked in all its frozen glory. The train afforded views over 30 miles of sheer ice to the craggy snow-capped peaks of the Kamar-Daban mountains on the far shore. Two of the fierce forest fires that blight the region in summer were billowing clouds of thick smoke into the blue skies. Baikal is as big as a sea, but the ice deadens all sound, so there’s no lapping of waves, only an eerie silence.

Two days later we awoke in Listvyanka to find the southern lake ice had vanished overnight. Yesterday’s frozen peace was now wind-whipped white horses. The familiar sounds of choppy waters had returned, this time accompanied by the gentle musical tinkling of ice crystals. Our thirst for Baikal still unquenched, we made plans to head 250 kilometres north, to Olkhon Island.

This was a mission in itself. We endured four hours of jam-packed, juddering marshrutka (minibus) on partly unpaved roads, then a padushka (hovercraft) skimming unnervingly but exhilaratingly over the ice, and finally a 35km dirt track scramble to Khuzhir on the island’s western shore. Our driver on Olkhon was Anatoly, a Russian Tom Selleck in his ‘Magnum PI’ days, all fat moustache, gold teeth, wily grin and twinkling mischievous eyes. He spoke no English so we quickly endeared ourselves to him with our stock-in-trade Russian ice-breaker “Kussna sassiski” (tasty sausages).

Anatoly took us ice-fishing, our lines dangling through holes in the foot-thick frozen lake surface, after a tentative walk out across the (fortunately) firm crust. When we made our first catch Anatoly, as the self-styled “fishing priest”, stepped up gleefully to “baptize” us. This entailed us being beaten repeatedly about the face with the tail of the freshly caught fish.

That night Nikola, the caretaker at our homestead, serenaded us with Engelbert Humperdinck numbers on his accordion. Nikola expressed incredulity when we told him how lucky we thought he was living on wild and wistful Olkhon. “Lucky? We are Siberians! This is normal for us!” If this is normal, I want to be a Siberian.

Ed Gillespie is creative director of Futerra.

Read all of Ed Gillespie`s low-carbon adventures on www.lowcarbontravel.com

Homepage photo by Gasi

As often happens when he travels outside his native Greenland, the Inuit politician Aqqaluk Lynge recently found himself clearing up a few misconceptions. For a start, the word “Eskimo” is generally considered offensive. Coats with fur-trimmed hoods are not de rigueur either, unless you’re hunting seal. Then there’s the igloo thing, and the nose-rubbing … “I think some people have a kind of cartoon in their minds,” the silver-haired 59-year-old Greenlander said with a twinkly smile.

And the hundred different words for snow? “No.” He laughed. “Sorry.”

Despite his efforts to dispel myths about his culture, Lynge was always going to come off as a slightly exotic outsider, if only because of the sheer mundane Britishness of the setting. He was appearing on July 27 as a star witness at the public inquiry into the proposed expansion of Stansted Airport, in a low-ceilinged office building not far from the terminal building, and his sealskin waistcoat stood out against the sober suits of lawyers representing airport owner BAA.

So did his argument — which, coming after weeks of technical discussion on planning law, went to the heart of the issue. If thousands more flights were allowed to take off from Stansted – London`s third airport — each year, he told the inquiry, their impact would be felt in his homeland, in the form of thinning ice, lost hunting grounds and eroded shorelines which are already threatening many Inuit settlements in Alaska, Canada, Russia and Greenland.

It is the first time an airport planning forum in Britain has taken into account the global impact of aviation on the climate, and Stop Stansted Expansion, the campaign group that invited Lynge to testify, could hardly have hoped to create a more vivid moment. As he spoke of the damage to the Arctic environment, planes bearing the liveries of Ryanair and easyJet were taking off immediately behind him, the vast majority of their passengers on short-haul holiday trips.

“What happens in the world happens first in the Arctic,” said Lynge, a former minister in Greenland’s home-rule government and a vice-president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), a organization promoting Inuit rights, development and culture. The Inuit — “the people who live farther north than anyone else” — were “the canary in the global coal mine”, he said. Climate change was “not just a theory to us … It is a stark and dangerous reality.” Some Inuit villages have already lost homes as the sea moves 300 metres inland in places, while thinning ice makes hunting increasingly difficult, even dangerous. “We don’t hunt for sport or recreation,” Lynge said. “Hunters put food on the table. You go to the supermarket. We go on the sea ice.”

BAA is seeking to remove the cap that limits the number of passengers taking off from Stansted to 25 million a year. Opponents say that could see flights increase from 192,000 to 264,000 a year, raising the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from 5 million to 7 million tonnes. The inquiry’s lead inspector, Alan Boyland, will make a recommendation after the process concludes in October, and a government announcement is expected next spring. Stop Stansted Expansion says it will be “the litmus test of the seriousness of the government’s commitment to properly tackling the climate change issue”.

As spectators’ applause for Lynge’s speech died down, BAA’s lawyers did not seek to question his account of changes in the Arctic. Their argument is that a local planning inquiry is no place to challenge the government’s overall policy on climate change, since allowing more flights from Stansted could be consistent with the overall aim of reducing carbon emissions provided sufficient reductions are made elsewhere. Flying Matters, a group backed by the airline industry, says Lynge’s claims are part of “an apocalyptic campaign of green spin”.

Surely, said Michael Humphries, legal counsel for BAA, Lynge agreed that it was “not for the Inuit Circumpolar Conference to tell the UK government how it should deliver its greenhouse gas totals?”

Lynge proposed a deal: “I’m not here to meddle in UK policies, if you don’t meddle in my environment.”

Homepage photo by Ti.mo

The current warming of the globe means that various weather patterns will change in the next few decades, but past changes can inform us about the possibilities of what this will mean.

Changes in weather patterns lead to changes in the patterns of the natural world, as well as changes in the patterns of human habitation – on a local as well as on a global scale. [%26hellip;]

The form and the topology of the space in which people live greatly influence physical functions and activities as well as social systems and people`s perceptions, not only of the space in which they operate but also of themselves. As we start to study the centre line of the ribbon of habitation, we discover that its central location has many advantages in terms of physical functions, for instance in terms of transportation, because it is located at the heart of the settlement area. The outer borders of the ribbon, the periphery, on the other hand, are obviously spatially disadvantaged.

The form of the ribbon also translates into something similar in terms of social functions and human perception; the areas at the centre of the ribbon are of greatest social importance, in terms of the global community, with people out on the periphery perceived by the people in the middle as inferior and uninteresting. [%26hellip;]

Before we start to review the characteristics of the spatial system of a global world – which has already started to evolve with the activation of the Arctic – it is important to examine the characteristics of these two contrastive systems, the ribbon world and the global world, in such a way that their nature and their consequences, in terms of how areas and people operate here on Earth, can be compared and understood in the best possible way.

In addition to the present studies of geometric characteristics of world views, the shift from today`s world of two “islands” — the Americas and Eurasia — and the future world that is characterised by a circular form of a landmass that surrounds the future “Middle-of-the-World Ocean”, the Arctic Ocean, should be mentioned. [%26hellip;]

A profound understanding of the two spatial global systems is absolutely essential for being able to understand what consequences the gradual shift from a ribbon world to a global world is going to mean in terms of how the world society is going to function within the emerging new spatial system of a global world.

Let`s now start this description of the spatial system of the emerging global world with a correction: The world of the future – practically speaking – will not be global but rather semi-global, that is, a world of the northern hemisphere. There are several reasons why this will be so.

First and most important is the fact that most of the land mass of the Earth is located in the northern hemisphere. Secondly, the linear centre of the globe, and therefore the most important areas of the globe for humans, is located in the northern hemisphere. Third, the Arctic will warm much more than Antarctica, and the Arctic will – for several reasons – be of far more importance than Antarctica in the future development of human activities. Fourth, excessive heat in the central regions of the world will mean that this belt around Earth will be of diminished global importance and will eventually function as a separation between the northern and southern hemispheres, which will further enhance the importance of the North and be a considerable disadvantage for the South.

These four reasons – together with an activation of the Arctic with shipping and resource exploitation — will mean that the world of the future will – practically speaking – be a semi-global world of the northern hemisphere.

The activation of the polar areas – especially that of the Arctic – will occur as the global climate continues to get warmer. In the past, extreme cold has led to year-round ice cover and has primarily been the prohibiting factor for limiting the development and presence and a more extended range of biota and human activities.

Global shipping, utilising the shortest distance between continents via the Arctic Ocean, has therefore not been possible despite courageous historical attempts to find a passage. The warming of the Arctic, on the other hand, will mean that the whole northern part of the globe – the site of most of the landmass of Earth – will become open to a different and increasing biota and, eventually, to the development of a system of important central areas for human activities. This will lead to a spatial system of centres that, in many ways, will be different from that of the globe today.

One car gets 46 miles per gallon, features fancy accessories, and sports two engines with a combined 145 horsepower. The other car reportedly gets 54 miles per gallon, runs on a diminutive 30-horsepower engine, and is positively spartan in its interior trimmings. The first is a darling of the environmentally conscious. The latter is reviled as a climate wrecker. These two vehicles are the Toyota Prius and the newly unveiled Tata Nano, dubbed “the people`s car.” Is there a double standard?

Advertised as the world`s cheapest car, the Nano is a no-frills automobile designed by Indian conglomerate Tata to be affordable for millions, possibly hundreds of millions, of people who are newly joining the middle class in India and elsewhere in the developing world. Such mass sales might overwhelm halting efforts to ward off catastrophic climate change. As Indians (and others) join the love affair with the private automobile, many in the west are suddenly aghast at the prospect of Nano becoming a household term like Chevy or Mercedes. The German weekly Der Spiegel termed it an “eco-disaster.”

Indeed, transportation has the fastest growing carbon emissions of any economic sector. Proliferating numbers of automobiles are a key reason. More than 600 million passenger cars are now on the world`s roads, and each year some 67 million new ones roll out of manufacturing plants.

But amid the finger pointing, let`s remember who has driven the planet to the edge of the climate abyss. People in western countries and Japan%26mdash;less than 15% of the world`s population%26mdash;own two-thirds of all passenger and commercial motor vehicles in the world. Although they are rapidly expanding their fleets, India and China, with a third of the world`s population, so far account for only about 5% of vehicles. In 2005, China`s ratio of motor vehicles to population was at about the level the United States had reached some 90 years earlier. India`s ratio is less than half that of China.

Westerners not only have far more cars, but the distances they drive are also 3-4 times longer on average than those of Indians and Chinese. The US alone – where monster SUVs roam and driving is considered a birthright – claims about 44% of the world`s gasoline consumption. Fuel economy has stagnated for a quarter-century as cars grew larger, heavier, and more muscular. In New York, a Nano might be mistaken for a golf cart.

So if it`s true that Asia`s (and Latin America`s and Africa`s) teeming billions can`t indulge in the same reckless habits as westerners, then neither can Americans, Europeans, or Japanese. Delhi and Beijing know hypocrisy when they encounter it. Nonetheless, they have good reason to take action irrespective of what western countries say or do. Residents of many Asian cities are exposed to a lethal brew of sulphur and nitrogen oxides, particulates, and toxics from motor vehicles of all stripes. Breathable air is every bit as important as climate stability.

Leaner engines and cleaner fuels are essential. The Nano may well be a cleaner option than the highly polluting motorcycles, motor rickshaws, and diesel buses (and many of the western-designed cars) already clogging India`s roads. But the mass market that Tata is hoping for will render putative gains ephemeral.

All countries need to seriously rethink their transportation policies. Such an effort has to go far beyond the pursuit of alternative fuels and even beyond making cars more efficient. Denser cities and shorter distances reduce the overall need for motorised transportation and make public transit, biking, and walking more feasible. Those who will never be able to afford a car will have more options instead of being marginalised by the onslaught of private automobiles.

When BYD Auto launches one of China`s first mass produced fully electric sedans later this year, it will be trying to conquer the world rather than save it. But such is the explosive growth of China`s car market and thirst for petrol that the two goals are likely to become ever more synonymous.

The E6 plug-in is currently under wraps at the company`s sprawling industrial complex in Shenzhen, but it will soon be at the vanguard of a company`s – and a nation`s – plans to dominate the global market for “clean transport”.

Senior government leaders have initiated a major push for hybrid and electric vehicles in a bid to bypass car makers overseas and avoid an environmental meltdown at home.

The consultancy McKinsey and Company estimates that China`s car market will grow tenfold between 2005 and 2030, which will drive up demand for diesel and petrol from 110 million tonnes to 500 million tonnes. That will mean a sharp rise in carbon emissions from a country that has already overtaken the United States as the world`s biggest source of greenhouse gases.

Hybrid, electric and fuel-cell vehicles could ease the burden, but they will not solve the problem because at the moment more than 70% of China`s electricity is powered by coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Even if there is a large-scale take-up of the new technologies, which could cut emissions by 19%, McKinsey estimates that the combined emissions from road transport would still increase more than fourfold within the next two decades.

Faced by this nightmare, the Chinese authorities recently announced plans for 50,000-yuan rebates for electric and hybrid cars, encouraged city taxi fleets to buy vehicles with the new technology, and prompted state and regional grids to set up charging stations.

BYD is likely to be a major beneficiary. The initials stand for Build Your Dreams, which prompted snickers when the company debuted in US car shows last year, as did the soaring ambitions of the founder Wang Chuanfu, who has stated that BYD will be the biggest carmaker in China by 2015 and the biggest in the world by 2025.

Despite it making a third of the world`s mobile phone batteries, until recently few people outside of China had heard of BYD. But the company exploded into the international consciousness late last year by beating Toyota and General Motors to launch the world`s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid.

At the company`s sprawling headquarters in Guangdong Province, there is little outward sign that BYD is a world beater. Apart from the golden pillars at the entrance, the company`s offices are as grimly utilitarian as any other factory in the workshop of the world.

But style is not the point. The company has built an empire by offering cheap, high-quality batteries and now it aims to do the same for cars.

In February, just six years after it was formed, the firm sold 28,000 gasoline (petrol) and diesel cars in China, more than any foreign or domestic rival. Its 10,000 research engineers have also designed the ferrous battery technology of the e6, which will be released before mass-produced electric cars from Honda and Nissan.

The plug-in five-seater will reportedly be able to travel 400 kilometres on a single charge and reach a top speed of 160 kilometres per hour. “We are trying to make an electric car that people can use like a normal car,” says Henry Li, the head of BYD Auto`s export and trade division, as we drive around the company`s car park in the BYD`s other new breakthrough vehicle, the F3DM.

Like the company, the hybrid starts out so quietly you barely notice it moving. At low speeds, the battery-powered engine makes only a fraction more noise than the tyres on the road. But put your foot on the pedal and the vehicle roars to life as the gas kicks in.

Acceleration from zero to 60 kilometres per hour in 10.5 seconds will not win any Formula One races. Nor will the hybrid`s current sales scare rivals. The company says orders are only in the “several hundred” range, mostly from the Shenzhen local governments and BYD`s main bank.

Analysts are withholding judgment on whether BYD can achieve its ambitious targets. “BYD`s battery technology is good and that is important, but cars are more complicated than that,” says Zhao Junhua of CSM Worldwide in Shanghai. “BYD will need more experience. Chinese firms are still behind Japanese rivals like Toyota, Honda and Nissan.”

There are also many questions about the environmental benefits of electric cars, given China`s reliance on coal. Electric vehicles drive down carbon emissions best if they are charged at night with wind or other forms of renewable energy, but this is not currently possible in the country.

But they do use energy more efficiently than both petrol- and diesel-driven cars, and environmental groups say electric vehicles can at least reduce the huge negative impact from the spread of car culture in China.

“Electric cars would be a big step forward,” said Greenpeace executive director Gerd Leipold on a recent visit to Beijing. “Hybrid cars have a better reputation than their ecological performance merits.”

BYD may lead the pack in China, but the government is encouraging others to move into clean transport manufacturing – an area where it hopes domestic companies can overtake bigger foreign rivals.

At an exhibition of clean energy technology in Beijing in March, the science and technology minister, Wan Gang, said the country aimed to come out of the current economic downturn greener and more advanced than it went in. “Accompanying every financial crisis is a revolution in technology that serves as an engine for economic development. This time, new energy technology will probably be the new driving force.”

Every few weeks there is fresh news that China is upgrading its transport and energy infrastructure. In March, Chery Auto unveiled a battery electric vehicle – the S18EV – that it says has a range of 150 kilometres on a single charge. Shortly before that, Xinri started building an industrial park capable of producing five million electric scooters and bicycles per year. And Tianjin-Qingyuan has recently announced that it may precede BYD with the autumn release of a fully battery-powered Saibao sedan.

More than a dozen other firms have begun manufacturing electric buses. However, the gusto with which many Chinese people have embraced the idea of clean energy was most evident however in a display of a sanlunche – the boxed three-wheel scooters that are a familiar sight in Beijing`s alleyways – fitted with wing-like solar panels.

But, so far, none have gone as far as BYD. Li says it is simply a matter of business. “We are not trying to save the world, we are making money. Our strategy aims to give value to shareholders. If we can help the planet at the same time, all the better.”

www.guardian.co.uk

Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Homepage photo by BYD Auto

Continuing pollution from port-related activities in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta (PRD) represents a long-term threat to public health and future economic development, Hong Kong-based think-tank Civic Exchange says in a new report, Green Harbours: Hong Kong and Shenzhen – Reducing Marine and Port-Related Emissions. It is vital for the ports and associated logistics industries to address the problem sooner rather than later. The industry is ready for the government to regulate it and act as a convenor to encourage discussions across sectors and borders. The government must now ensure a level playing field, so the industry can effectively implement green initiatives without its members losing their competitive advantage.

In compiling the report, Civic Exchange sought the views of stakeholders from Hong Kong and the PRD. It was the first time that members of the shipping, port, local craft and trucking sectors spoke to each other about environmental concerns across the industry.

Hong Kong and the PRD have some of the busiest ports in the world and throughput is only expected to grow. Millions of people in the region live and work in close proximity to port facilities and are directly exposed to harmful levels of shipping and port-related emissions. Toxic emissions from ships and port-operations represent a danger to public health and a long-term threat to the economy.

Governments and the various players in the maritime sectors of Hong Kong and the PRD have already implemented some positive measures, which include encouraging the use of low-sulphur fuels by ships, barges, port vehicles and equipment; using electricity to power port machinery; reducing fuel consumption; and using quay-side electrification. The more progressive companies are looking at how to reduce their carbon footprint.

Although these measures in themselves are not sufficient to reduce emissions on a scale necessary to protect public health, they do form a solid foundation on which to do more. There is a willingness among stakeholders to do better, but they need government regulation to create a level playing field so that laggards do not benefit from non-action. Thus, marine and port-related emissions, in fact, represent a quick win for the authorities.

One of the most important tools to reduce marine emissions globally and regionally is Annex VI of the International Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution from Ships (MARPOL Convention), enforced by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Annex VI stipulates that the sulphur content of fuel used in ships cannot exceed 4.5% and sets limits on nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. Both Beijing and Hong Kong have ratified Annex VI, and are now bound by any future modification to Annex VI.

Recent discussions within the IMO have resulted in proposals for the revision of Annex VI, to be adopted in October 2008, as part of the ongoing process of setting global fuel and engine standards. Central to these talks is reducing the sulphur content of fuel in ships in global waters, and in Emission Control Areas (ECAs – areas close to ports and population centres). However, the current criteria for ECA designation is quite strict, and perhaps an unrealistic option for the PRD. However, negotiators at the IMO are considering ways to gradually increase the demand for cleaner fuels to ease the change for refineries, either by relaxing the criteria for ECA designation, and encouraging more of them to be created, or by suggesting emission limits that countries could implement in their territorial waters (this would be independent of the IMO, but would nevertheless encourage global consistency). These options could work well for the PRD region, and other Chinese port areas.

The health impact of marine and port-related air pollution is not a problem unique to Hong Kong and southern China. In North America and Europe, ports, governments and maritime industries are developing solutions to protect public health by way of regulations, incentive programmes, award and recognition schemes, comprehensive plans and policies, research and cross-interest collaborations. Vocal local communities and environmental groups have also played a role in bringing this issue to the attention of ports and local authorities.

While its efforts do not go far enough, the Hong Kong Government has promoted various initiatives to reduce sulphur emissions. Port operators in Hong Kong and Shenzhen have taken steps to clean up their operations. Some shipping companies, fearing the adoption of a worldwide patchwork of national and coastal emissions standards, have begun to use cleaner fuels and emission-reducing technologies on their engines when approaching ports. So far, however, this practice is not widespread in Hong Kong or the PRD.

Shipping companies, as well as port, local craft and truck operators, are willing to use cleaner fuels and follow best emission abatement practices, as long as regulations are implemented that will apply to all competitors across the board to ensure a level playing field. Bringing together competitors from across the industry is a critical part of reducing emissions. The Hong Kong Government and the Shenzhen authorities are best-placed to convene the dialogue that needs to take place to make this happen. Ratification of Annex VI was an important step for Hong Kong, but it is only the first move of what should become a comprehensive plan to reduce marine air pollution from harbour and river craft, ports, and trucks.

There are many initiatives that can be taken in the short term to improve air quality, such as reducing ship speed in PRD and Hong Kong waters, using cleaner fuels, or training staff to use existing machinery more efficiently to reduce fuel consumption and thus reduce emissions. In the medium-term, there is an urgent need to create an inventory of marine emissions in the PRD, improve Hong Kong`s inventory and to make these available for research and policy formulation. Without this information, it is difficult to create effective policy that targets emissions from marine sources. By looking at the experience and best practices of other port regions as well as taking advantage of the willingness in the industry regionally to clean up their operations, authorities in Hong Kong and Shenzhen can take an important step in protecting public health by reducing toxic emissions from this polluting industry.

Veronica Galbraith is a researcher at Civic Exchange

Lynne Curry is an independent environmental consultant

Christine Loh is the CEO of Civic Exchange

Homepage photo by OZinOH

Visiting Beijing for the very successful Olympic Games in August, and then attending the Urban Transportation Management Forum organized by the Shenzhen Municipal Government to talk to their planning bureau about the experience of congestion charging in London, gave me an interesting idea. During my visit to the east coast cities in China, I was struck by the possibility of introducing London-style congestion charging to Beijing. Such measures increasingly need to be considered due to the need to reduce congestion and improve air quality in Beijing, particularly after the successful short-term measures undertaken during the Olympics have come to an end.

The clear blue skies at the end of the Beijing Olympics were impressive, especially given concerns expressed by some about the possible adverse effects of air pollution on the performance of top athletes. The latter, of course, did not materialise, as 43 world records and 120 Olympic records were shattered during the Games. Credit here should go to the initiatives taken by the city authorities to improve air quality in Beijing during the Olympics, which were achieved by providing better and cheaper public transport and implementing the car licensing scheme. The success of the latter has interestingly led to local people to call for the extension of the two-month, odd-even license plate restriction that allows the city`s 3.3 million private car owners to drive only on alternate days. In the case of public transport, Zhou Zhengyu, deputy director of the Beijing municipal committee during the Olympics, announced that the reduced ticket prices in use for the duration of the Games would be extended. In Beijing there was a cut in the standard price of a bus ticket by 60% for regular passengers and 80% for students. Last October, the price of a single journey subway ticket was slashed 30% to 2 yuan (US$ 0.29). So, not surprisingly, because of the cheaper fares and the traffic control measures introduced for the Olympics, the proportion of Beijing residents now using public transport on a daily basis is up to 45% from 35%.

The national government initiatives enacted at the beginning of September to raise taxes on big cars and reduce them on smaller ones will also contribute to improving the quality of life in Beijing. Owners of cars with engines above four-litres capacity will have to pay a 40% tax, which is double the existing rate. The tax for cars between three and four litres will rise from 15% to 25%. However, those cars with below one-litre capacity will be reduced from 3% to 1%. This tax move is a good first step for the country towards an energy-efficient and environmentally friendly economy, while helping to save fuel and thus increase energy security.

Yet Beijing will still have 3.3 million cars, and that figure is growing by 300,000 a year. The only solution to this challenge is the continuous development of the city`s public transport system along its current path, but with one addition – congestion charging that will ration road space by price, so that the marginal cost of an additional trip by a car owner will be paramount in their minds.

The geography of Beijing, with its various ring roads, would lend itself very easily to congestion charging. At the beginning, a congestion charge zone could be introduced within either the second or third ring road and then be extended outwards depending on the success of the scheme and public demand for it. In order to win public support, the funds raised from the congestion charge would have to be reinvested into public transport. As in London, some exemptions, or at least a discount rate, might have to be granted to residents within the charge zone. Nevertheless, the scheme could be put into operation very quickly using simple technology like closed-circuit television at the entry points off the ring roads and camera enforcement using a database of car licenses. Although I understand there is not as yet a national database of car licenses in China, and I am unsure as to numbers of cars that move between the various cities of China, these hurdles should not be insurmountable for the Chinese authorities to overcome.

One day I look forward to visiting Beijing again and seeing road congestion charging, or least another variant of road pricing, being implemented to improve the quality of life for Beijing’s residents. This should be the icing on the cake, heaped on top of the outstanding investment already undertaken by the authorities, measures that are aimed toward people-centred and scientific methods of development.

Murad Qureshi is deputy Chair of the London Assembly`s Environmental Committee. This article was originally published at The Qureshi Report.

The new president of the United States, Barack Obama, has planned a range of measures to deal with climate change. These include the expansion of the use and production of biofuels. But while biofuels can replace some fossil fuels, the main focus of climate-change mitigation should be reducing fuel consumption and increasing energy efficiency. Biofuels cannot be a major part of the solution – and they may have a negative impact on the climate and the global economy.

Simply put, any organic substance converted into fuel is a biofuel. “First generation” biofuels are already widely available. These include ethanol produced from food crops such as maize, sugarcane and sorghum, and biodiesel from oil-bearing crops like soybeans, oil palms or rapeseed. Tung-oil trees have also been planted for use as biofuel feedstock. Research into “second generation” biofuel technology is also underway. This would mean converting wood cellulose directly into fuel, but the manufacturing processes have not yet advanced to the point where this is possible.

In 2007, 53 billion litres of ethanol and 10 billion litres of biodiesel were produced. However, the cost of planting crops for feedstock is high, and production is rarely profitable or able to compete with oil. In July 2008, with oil prices at a record high, a litre of unleaded petrol cost US$1.08 in the US. At the same time, a litre of maize ethanol still cost almost US$1 to produce. The current downturn has seen the cost of petrol drop to around US$0.44 a litre, meaning biofuel alternatives are even less competitive. The high costs of biofuel production mean that governments are forced to provide subsidies. Currently the only profitable biofuel is the sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil.

Of most concern is the impact of biofuels on global food security and agriculture. Large areas of farmland are being used for biofuel feedstock production instead of food crops, which raises the price of staple foods. Biofuel expansion is not the only factor behind recent price rises, but it is a major one. Many developing countries are unable to buy enough food – and there is a real threat of starvation for the poor. This has led some to describe the use of food crops for fuel when people are going hungry as a “crime against humanity”.

In theory, biofuels are carbon neutral: burning crops emits the same carbon dioxide that the plants took from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. But in practice, the situation is not so simple, because planting feedstock, processing biofuels and transporting them all require additional energy inputs. A 2008 report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that production of sugarcane ethanol in Brazil did reduce emissions by 80% when compared with fossil fuels. However, maize ethanol production in the United States cut emissions by less than 30%. The environmental impact of this first-generation technology was overestimated.

It is also incorrect to assume that planting biofuel feedstock does not cause greenhouse-gas emissions. Tropical forests – crucial carbon sinks – are being devastated as land is cleared for biofuel production. The creation of fields for the planting of soybeans and sugarcane is a cause of deforestation in the Amazon rain forest. Rain forests in Indonesia are being cut down and replaced with oil palm plantations. A paper published last year in the journal Nature described how a “carbon debt” is created, as the destruction of forests often releases more carbon dioxide than is saved by replacing fossil fuels. Environmentalists are also worried by the deforestation occurring in biodiversity hot spots in the Amazon and southeast Asian rain forests.

Planting biofuel feedstock results in soil loss and water pollution. Soil degradation caused by large-scale fertiliser use is also a prominent issue, and the nitrous oxide released by fertiliser use is a greenhouse gas many times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

First-generation biofuel technology has not provided the environmental benefits its proponents hoped. On the contrary, it has brought its own environmental risks. The European Union has started to make changes to its biofuel policy, and members of the European Parliament voted to reduce the target for biofuel use from 10% of transport fuels down to 6%, and establish a system of certification for sustainable biofuel production. The new US president is starting to take biofuel development seriously: Obama says he hopes to harness the power of second-generation biofuels technology. But it is not yet clear if this technology will be profitable, and biofuels cannot be relied on to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The key to achieving that aim will be increasing energy efficiency and expanding environmentally friendly energy sources, such as wind and solar power.

Yang Fangyi is a masters student at the Tropical and International Forestry Institute, University of Gottingen, Germany. Between 2004 and 2008, Yang worked on biodiversity preservation projects for Conservation International in China. He also worked for the Shan Shui Conservation Centre.

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